Monday, May 24, 2004

Don't reduce your love to parents after knowing God

I was reminded about a concept that I think was misunderstood by many. (Before I begin, I should say that I am not too familiar with the Bible and I am talking about the concept here, i.e. not about the actual meaning of the verse.)

In the Bible Matthew 10:37 "Jesus said to his apostles: ‘Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; ..." Initially, this gives me the impression that we have to love our parents lesser so as to fulfill the condition that we do not love our parents more than Jesus. I am not surprise if there were many who felt likewise.

Now I understand it as follows: Assuming that we naturally love our parents very much and loving them is correct, without doubt. Thus, the idea of reducing our love for them is not an acceptable concept or option. In this case, the only way to satisfy the request of not loving our parent more than Jesus will be to strive to increase our love for Jesus.

In some way, this is similar to the common behavior of choosing the easy way out. Last time, some how I avoided from being rich and was having low level of satisfactions. This is the easy way out for living 'comfortably' by lowering our standard of 'comfort'. By a similar logic as above, now I set higher standard of comfort and strive for it, by putting more effort into achieving that. In doing so, I foresee that the overall standard of comfort in a society will be raised and everyone benefits. In 'easy way out' case, I'll remain as comfortable through illusion and this will not benefit those around me.

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